We have seen maps of which countries are richer, and which are warmer. But Dr Adrian White, social psychologist at the University of Leicester, has put together the world’s first map of happiness, based on an 80,000-strong sample. (Thanks to Dr Deborah Serani’s blog.)
   Denmark leads the happiness scale, and for those who have not been in København during the last day of term, I can confirm that the uni students are pretty happy people. Switzerland, Austria, Iceland and the Bahamas follow. New Zealand is 18th, and the United States is 23rd.
   At the other end of the scale, the Democratic Republic of Congo is 176th, Zimbabwe is 177th (no surprise there), and Burundi is 178th.
   Interesting who came out on top as I would have thought the Finns (6th), Swedes (7th) and Bhutanese (8th) would be higher than the Swiss and Austrians. New Zealanders will probably care that we beat the Australians, but like with many of these global indices, I still say, ‘We can do better.’ Posted by Jack Yan, 07:54  permalink

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